IHS 56—Horns on the Horizon
by John McGuire
Hello fellow hornists!
This month has seen a flurry of activities in preparation for our August IHS 56 Symposium. The team has spent several weeks crafting what we believe will be a very strong schedule for the week. We have many wonderful performances, presentations, masterclasses, and other exciting events, and I would encourage everyone to go through the schedule—which is now posted at www.hornsonthehorizon.com—and find all the sessions and concerts that interest you. I guarantee that there are many opportunities for everyone to learn and be inspired!
Of course, we are all excited about the Featured Artists’ performances and masterclasses—who wouldn’t be! But I would like to draw special attention to a few other exciting offerings. Notably, there will be a large number of outstanding Contributing Artists sharing their talents and new works for horn, and presenting research that pertains to all of us. I personally can’t wait to see and hear them all…or at least as many as I can physically attend!
Additionally, we will be hosting late-night sessions after the evening concerts. These sessions will be informal interviews with many of our Featured Artists. It will be a chance for all of us to sit down with these icons of the horn world and get to know them in a more comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. (If you have ever had the chance to see the American television program Inside the Actors’ Studio, that’s how I envision these gatherings.)
Last, please make plans to attend what will surely be a wonderful and emotional tribute concert to Hermann Baumann, who recently passed away. Undoubtedly one of the finest horn players in history, Hermann’s impact on players around the world cannot be overstated, and it’s difficult to imagine someone who has had a greater influence on so many. This concert will be the featured evening performance on Thursday, August 1st—which would have been Baumann’s 90th birthday. There will be many terrific individual performances and tributes, and I’m sure there won’t be a dry eye in the house.
Please register now for IHS 56, if you have not already done so. We look forward to seeing you in Colorado!
Student Column—Preparing for Performance Anxiety
by Inman Hebert
Whether playing for juries, recitals, or even important concerts, many collegiate horn players have felt the effects of performance anxiety. Symptoms may include dry mouth, shaking muscles, shortness of breath, sweaty palms, and more. Experiencing performance anxiety is perfectly normal; however, learning how to prepare for and manage nerves is critical to the evolution of horn students in elevating our performances.
Musical preparation and visualization are the initial steps to managing anxiety. If a student cannot play a piece consistently in the practice room, no amount of managing nerves will overcome poor preparation. After a piece becomes second nature, performing the music in our practice sessions, including others (fellow students, for example) as our audience, and being creative in simulating performance conditions can give us the confidence to perform under pressure. Aside from regular musical preparation, visualization of successful performances can also help mitigate anxiety. Imagine warming up pre-performance, stepping on stage, and playing the music. These steps can make a performance feel familiar instead of foreign, and this helps a horn player stay focused in the moment which leads to more success.
Recognizing and accepting performance anxiety symptoms as our body’s normal reaction to pressure allows us to refocus our energy on coping strategies. Physically, hydrate with water and limit caffeine intake the days before a performance since caffeine can raise adrenaline levels and worsen the effects of stress. Anxiety can trigger dry mouth, muscle tension, and shallow breathing; however, incorporating stress reduction techniques into our pre-performance can alleviate these symptoms. Stretching releases tension and helps improve posture. Deep breathing lowers our heart rate and blood pressure, and reduces stress hormones. Airflow is foundational to our horn playing. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and connect to the present moment.
Mentally, reframe your emotions and develop mindfulness. Interpret your anxiety as excitement, and create a mental checklist of positive performance memories. Hear the music in your head and remember how you want it played. Having the right mindset before and during the performance can help mitigate anxiety. Accepting that mistakes may happen, not all performances will go well, and perfection is unrealistic helps us not to panic and to stay in the moment. Instead of dwelling on a mistake just made, an upcoming phrase, or pending feedback, refocus on the present. Your audience will most likely appreciate your authentic self who communicates a convincing musical message over technical perfection.
Many horn professionals share experiences of overcoming performance anxiety. As horn students, we cannot see anxiety as taboo. Instead, we must view it as another area to navigate. With proper mental and physical preparation tools, we can manage performance anxiety, allowing our musical selves to shine.
Ambitious Amateurs—Being Organized
by Marty Schlenker
Dear Fellow Ambitious Amateurs,
This month, I tackle a topic that affects us all: organization.
I am a member of the “players just wanna play” crowd. If I had all the time in the world, I’d have horn-to-face each day until I couldn’t stand it, anywhere, with anybody—like a songbird in a tree, regardless of the technical and interpretive limitations. I know that I am much like my fellow amateur readers of Horn and More. Horn is more than just this thing I do on Monday nights when I go to community band.
Those of us in the “players just wanna play” school, of course, owe a debt of gratitude to those from the “let’s get organized” school. If we are to walk in, get our horns out, and sit down to a stand of music, a member of the “let’s get organized” school will already have been on the job.
I am fortunate to be in the company of such people as a member of Brass Triumphant. Brass Triumphant is remarkable in its longevity for an amateur group, active continuously since 1985. The founding members (trumpeters Becky Speck and Mike Stahl—who continue to lead the group—plus horn, trombone, and piano) were brought together as pit musicians for passion plays put on by the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) chapter of Youth for Christ. When the organization chose to dispense with a live pit, the players had to find other outlets for performance.
Members of four different churches, the players had the advantage of being able to take repertoire “on the road,” and steady participation in church worship services followed. Performances at retirement centers, weddings, and other events came, too. A big motivator to staying organized is having those performance dates on the calendar. Nearly all dates have come via members’ personal connections, but we’ve had business cards since the 1990s and a website for 7 or 8 years.
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Brass Triumphant at a summer church service on a well-known riverboat in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
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Instrumentation is currently a well-balanced 4 trumpets, 2 horns, 3 trombones, and tuba, but it has varied over the years. Brass Triumphant could fit into members’ basements for rehearsals when the group was smaller, but we now rehearse in the showroom of Mike’s commercial flooring business on Saturday mornings at 8:00 a.m. sharp. Organizational advantages include a sufficiently spacious and reliably available rehearsal site, and a consistent time slot.
The group was fortunate to add trumpeter and arranger Dave Rutman in the early 1990s. He has adapted dozens of pieces to whatever the instrumentation has been at the time. Dave is modest about his arranging skills, but he has Finale software, a can-do attitude, and a sense of humor that can surprise you.
His most common adaptations are to insert additional trombone lines into brass quintets (which trombonist Jeff Schwartz will also do, ad lib) and to simplify unnecessarily challenging lines for the benefit of players and listeners alike. Dave states, “If I can mess with it before it gets passed out, no one feels like they’ve had notes taken away.” In 39 years, Brass Triumphant has assembled a library of close to 200 selections, much of which has been scanned for space efficiency and to reduce the risk of a lost folder; this is another investment of time that continues to yield organizational benefits.
Being the least-tenured member of the group, I was introduced to its history over a post-rehearsal breakfast, and one of the things that struck me was the matter-of-fact way in which the ensemble’s well-oiled functioning is organized. Things that are intimidating to many, especially for players new to self-promotion, are routine here. Want people to play with? Go find them! Want gigs? Cultivate them! Want to be asked back? Set clear expectations and come prepared. You don’t have to be virtuosos, but being organized surely helps.
And for anyone still paying attention to how my re-started lessons are going…uh…I am still far from practicing the organization that I preach. I returned last week from three weeks away from Pennsylvania, during which I was only able to practice a couple of times. I’m not back at square one but the irregularity sure isn’t helping. The good news is that the coming month will be much more settled. Check back!
And as always, please get in touch and share your stories! marty.schlenker@cavaliers.org
Marty Schlenker, Amateur Hornist
Composer Spotlight—Radie Britain
by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hello everyone!
This month, I’d like to introduce you to a composer I’ve only learned about very recently, Radie Britain. Born in 1899 in rural Texas, Radie (pronounced RAY-dee) was a highly successful composer during her lifetime who specialized in orchestral music with a Southwestern flair. Originally a pianist and organist, by the time she was in her mid-twenties, Radie had traveled to Europe to study composition with German composer Albert Noelte. Britain’s works for orchestra are very much in the style of late-Romantic German music while featuring subjects from the United States. Among her output are pieces such as Southern Symphony, Cowboy Rhapsody, Cactus Rhapsody, and Musical Portrait of Thomas Jefferson which would later be renamed Epic Poem. One of my favorites of her recorded orchestral compositions is her Heroic Poem, written in 1948; it features a lovely horn solo at around the 7-minute mark that is well worth a listen!
Although many of her works are for large ensembles, Radie also composed an impressive number of chamber works for a wide variety of groupings, several of which involve or feature the horn. First and most notably is a piece entitled In the Beginning, which is available both for unaccompanied horn and for horn quartet. It is unclear at the time of this writing whether the piece began as the solo version or vice versa, but, luckily for us, both are published and available for purchase online. Britain also composed a brass quartet called Adoration, several brass quintets including Ode to NASA (yes, the American space agency NASA!) and Awake to Life, and at least one woodwind quintet, Four Sarabandes. Although, to my knowledge, none of these chamber pieces has been recorded, if they are even half the quality of her outstanding orchestral pieces, any intrepid horn player who wants to dust off these long-neglected works is sure to be in for a wonderful treat.
The International Horn Society Composition Contest
Encourage your favorite composer to submit works to the 2024 Composition Contest.
The winner of each division will receive a prize of $1250 U.S.D. The winning compositions will be performed or featured, if possible, at an International Horn Society Workshop. The winning composers will have the option of having the work published by the IHS Online Music Sales.
For the 2024 Contest the Instrumentation of the Divisions follows:
FEATURED DIVISION:
- Compositions for Solo Horn (alone/unaccompanied)
VIRTUOSO DIVISION:
- Compositions for Solo Horn with Vocal Ensemble
- Compositions for Horn Ensemble (two or more players, all horns)
- Compositions for solo horn and keyboard instrument. (Keyboard instruments may include piano, harpsichord, organ, electronic keyboard, or mallet percussion.)
- Compositions featuring Horn with chamber ensemble of three or more players (one horn part only). (The chamber ensemble may include any combination of electronic instruments, acoustic instruments and/or voices. Electronic instruments may be live or pre-recorded. Acoustic instruments may include Wagner Tuben.)
- Compositions featuring Solo Horn featured with large ensemble. (The large ensemble may include any group of electronic, acoustic instruments and/or voices. Electronic instruments may be live or pre-recorded. Acoustic instruments may include Wagner Tuben.)
Information and application procedures may be found at-
https://www.hornsociety.org/about-the-ihs/composition-projects/composition-contest
Entries must be received no later than December 1, 2024.
For more information about the International Horn Society’s Composition Projects, please see the Book: The International Horn Society: The First 50 Years: Chapter Four: The I.H.S. and New Music for Horn, as well as reading the ongoing reports in The Horn Call—including articles in previous issues. Also, please attend the International Horn Society Composition Contest Program on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at our Symposium IHS56: Horns on The Horizon.
Chamber Music Corner – Esther Ballou’s Suite for Winds
by Layne Anspach
Hello musicians!
This month, Chamber Music Corner will feature Esther Ballou’s Suite for Winds (1957). Born in 1915 in Elmira, NY, Ballou was a composer, educator, and pianist. She obtained degrees from Bennington College (Vermont, 1937), Mills College (1938), and the Juilliard School (1943). She taught at Juilliard (1943-1950), Catholic University (1951-1954), and American University (1955-1972). In 1963, Ballou became the first American woman composer to have a work, Capriccio for Violin and Piano, premiered at the White House. She published a music theory textbook in 1971 entitled Creative Explorations of Musical Elements. While on sabbatical in 1973, she passed away in Chichester, England, due to a recurring illness.
Suite for Winds is a work for double woodwind quintet. It was premiered at Catholic University in 1957 by members of the United States Air Force Band. The work appears in three movements. The first, Allegro, is characterized by its uplifting mood, and it features each instrument paired with its counterpart. The opening section features the full ensemble with a few instances where the upper voices (flute, clarinet, oboe) alternate with the lower (horn, bassoon). The middle section features a soli from the oboes and a brief transition presented by the clarinets. The final section reprises a shortened version of the opening material before ending with a flourish.
The aptly named Lento e dolce holds a contemplative air. Only the woodwinds are featured in this movement. The first bassoon underscores much of the movement either as a supportive or solo line, but the flute is featured as the main melodic voice. The form of the final movement, Allegro, alternates between the entire ensemble and smaller groups in a dance-like triple meter. The opening section, which returns twice in the movement, uses all voices with a consistent reliance on fortepianos. The alternating sections feature a smoother and less dramatic ambience; a lovely oboe solo is prominent in the second iteration. The work concludes with a peaceful, somewhat anticlimactic coda.
The reference recording from the Atlanta Chamber Winds’ album, Wind Music (2020) from Albany Records. The hornists are Jason Eklund and Helen Werling.
Ambitious Amateurs
by Marty Schlenker
Dear Fellow Ambitious Amateurs,
We begin column #4 with an introduction to Richard Davis of Franklin, TN. He originally contacted me so that I could put him in touch with Marilyn Bone Kloss to receive Cornucopia, then graciously agreed to be profiled here. Elements of his journey as an amateur are similar to my own and can serve as inspiration to anyone.
Richard grew up in Mason City, Iowa, USA, hometown of Meredith Willson of The Music Man fame. His father was the band director in town, and that set Richard on a course toward a music degree until he encountered 18th century counterpoint and changed majors. Nevertheless, his dedication to horn continued.
Richard is well into retirement but practices at least an hour each day. He notes, “People begin to lose muscle mass in their 50s, but you never need to lose much at all if you keep using it. You don’t need to stop challenging yourself.” He believes practicing is good and necessary, but also that one must play with a group. It’s a way to exercise the “performance gene,” challenge oneself on repertoire, and manage sound.
Richard is a member of the Brass Band of Nashville (https://brassbandofnashville.org/) and the Franklin Brass Quintet whose members all come from the Brass Band. He observes, “As we age, we can become generationally isolated. Music is a way around that.” He enjoys working with younger players. The youngest member of his quintet is 29.
Like me, Richard resumed lessons in middle age, with Dr. Jeff Snedeker of Central Washington University. Richard felt he needed to mix things up after doing too much of the same thing, and embarked on a study of jazz horn. He met his match in studying improvisation, gaining the appreciation that it is every bit as challenging as older forms of composition.
I’ll be happy to be going as strong on horn as Richard when I reach his age, and happy if the lessons I recently embarked on bear as much fruit as they have for Richard.
Now a quick note on my lesson saga. Last month, I mentioned the advice I got to quit tonguing so hard. I still don’t feel like I am at habit-strength with my new tongue position (farther back, more vertical), but it’s definitely heading me in the right direction.
I wrote last month that the new tongue position changed the shape of my oral cavity. The most obvious effect of this has been an improvement in my upper register. Within a couple of weeks of settling my tongue in on the first ridge of my palate, B-flat and C were coming out with the ease (a relative term, of course) that I used to experience for G and A. Hooray! At all dynamic levels? No, not yet. Whenever I might want them? Also no. But there’s hope!
Next month, I hope to have another profile for you of an ambitious amateur, plus the next bits of direction that I’ve received in my lessons, one of which has had immediate, unmitigated positive impact, and one of which has put me squarely in “get worse to get better” territory.
Ambitious amateurs, get in touch and share your stories. This column will be much more with your contributions.
Until next month,
Marty Schlenker, Amateur Hornist
